Sheikh Imran Ali Siddiqi, a senior al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent leader, and Muhammad Mustafa, a Taliban commander loyal to Hafiz Gul Bahadar, were reported killed in the strikes in Khyber and North Waziristan.
The US has launched five strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas in five days, indicating that the hunt is on for a senior al Qaeda or allied jihadist leader or operative.
In the past, the press has erroneously claimed that other jihadist groups have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State.
The strike in the Shawal Valley is the third attack in the jihadist haven in the past three days.
Thirteen people are reported to have been killed in airstrikes in the Shawal Valley in South Waziristan. The area is a known transit point for fighters entering Afghanistan.
Omar Khalid al Khorasani, a top leader in Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, offered to help mediate the dispute between the Islamic State and the Al Nusrah Front and other jihadist rivals.
Both the Taliban and Junood al Fida, a jihadist group loyal to the Taliban and al Qaeda, have claimed that the Registan district in the southern Kandahar province has fallen to the jihadists. Afghan officials quickly denied the claim as “exaggerated.”
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Fazle-ur-Rahman Khalil, Harakat-ul-Mujahideen’s founder and leader, signed Osama bin Laden’s infamous 1998 fatwa that declared war on the US and Israel. HUM was added to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations 18 years ago.
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“There is no need for such strikes,” Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, condemning the attack “as a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
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The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan said that Mohammad Hassan recently was freed from a prison in Afghanistan before rejoining the fight in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
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Three ISAF soldiers were killed in a suicide attack in Kabul, while another soldier was killed after an Afghan soldier opened fire on military trainers at a base in Farah province.
The pair of al Qaeda commanders are said to be members of the Badr Mansoor Group, which was described in one of Osama bin Laden’s documents as an al Qaeda “company.”
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Usama Mahmoud, AQIS’s spokesman, openly stated that the group “was formed by the gathering of several jihadi groups that have a long history in jihad and fighting.”
Fourteen security personnel and 19 heavily armed Taliban fighters were killed and another 154 people were wounded during the coordinated attack.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar’s spokesman described the military press release and subsequent reporting in the Pakistani media as “nothing but complete lies,” and claimed that jihadists had moved out of the area long before the operation began.
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The Taliban have launched three such attacks in the eastern province of Nangarhar so far this year.
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“Jaamat-ul-Ahrar deals with itself and does not take orders from TTP leadership,” the group’s spokesman told The Long War Journal.